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Healing communities through art

Sarah Taddeo, USA TODAY NETWORK
Published 12:11 a.m. ET Jan. 14, 2017

Mawia Elawad, 21, immigrated to the U.S. from Sudan and is a student at Alfred University in Rochester, N.Y., working with Art Force 5, a group that creates communal art projects.(Photo: OLIVIA LOPEZ/USA TODAY NETWORK)

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For Mawia Elawad, a conversation between a neighborhood resident and a police officer while helping paint a community mural would make her work worth it.

Elawad, a 21-year-old Alfred University senior from Rochester, New York, is part of Art Force 5, a student group providing an outlet for residents to express their emotions through communal art projects that touch major U.S. issues like poverty, race and police-community relations.

“We’re giving people the chance to have their voices heard,” she said, adding that the projects are focused on “messages that help (community members) highlight their own self-esteem and realize the strength they have within themselves.”

The projects often include tiles that community members can paint to form larger murals, to be displayed at community events or exhibits to demonstrate peaceful unity.

The group did another project where community members could hang black or blue ribbons, to memorialize both the black lives and the police lives lost.

Art Force 5 started as an outreach program related to an Alfred University class called “Drawn to Diversity.” Students hold workshops for elementary school children, acting as “superheroes” to show that anyone can be a “hero” and deliver powerful community messages.

At a Black Lives Matter rally in Rochester last year, Art Force 5 offered boards with the words, “Why” and “What Now?,” where residents could jot down their thoughts. The group showed the boards to Rochester police officers after the rally to continue the discussion about community-police relations.

Elawad and Dan Napolitano, Alfred’s director of student activities who heads the Drawn to Diversity class, are working together to seek grants to start an Art Force 5 team in New York City.

Art Force 5 members are not telling people what to create or what they should be feeling, said Elawad.

“We are not a remedy, we are a reflection,” she said. “This is for (the community), and it’s all about their voices.”

Mawia Elawad

Location: Rochester, New York

Age: 21

Profession: College student, member of Art Force 5

Mission: To facilitate community conversations around hotbed issues through communal art

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